 There's a lot of excitement in the Bemidji girls hockey team this year, which might come a surprise based on their lack of recent success, but a new head coach in Hockey Day, Minnesota to look forward to has the team confident that they can turn things around. Joining a team that had lost 21 games each of the past two years, head coach Mike Johnson didn't know what to expect, but when he saw his team for the first time, he was pleasantly surprised. There's a tremendous amount of skill and camaraderie and they work together well and it was a bit of a surprise to see that. Johnson coached high school girls hockey in Wisconsin for eight years previously and the team says that his familiarity with the game has its benefits. He's coached girls prior to now and he understands he's showing us some new techniques. We're enjoying our practices a little bit more this year and just us enjoying it has really helped us perform on ice during games. The team has only scored four goals in their first four games, but Johnson feels that the team's strengths on defense will lead to more scoring opportunities. That's our whole strategy, we play good, tough team defense, we try to generate some scoring opportunities by some speed through the neutral zone and then maybe a good solid four check. Our breakouts have gotten a lot better, which creates offense chances down on the other end, which is nice, gives the goal is a break back there. We'll get better at creating scoring opportunities that will just come to us eventually. By far, the highlight of the season will be Hockey Day in Minnesota, as the team will host Woodbury on Thursday night of the weekend's events. We're all really excited for like a big stage, I mean we've had a hard time getting to stay through our playoffs, but this is like this is like our feeling of our state kind of. It's been very exciting, people are pushing through wanting to have a win in Hockey Day in Minnesota. So I think Hockey Day and knowing that we are going to be participating in it is really a motivation for this year. The schedule doesn't get any easier, another tough test approaches they had to warroad on Tuesday. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.